This invention relates to a combination wheelchair/gurney particularly adapted for use in a medical care environment such as a hospital or nursing home.
Hospital or nursing home patients who require the use of wheelchairs to get around, are often unable, because of physical disability, to move themselves from a bed into a chair or from a chair into a bed. Two attendants are generally needed to lift and move the patient. There is thus a need for a device where only one attendant is required to move the patient.
Gurneys are routinely used to transport patients in a prone position to and from medical procedure areas, whereas a standard design wheelchair allows a seated patient to wheel himself or herself around as desired. This attribute of standard design wheelchairs is particularly important in nursing homes, where patient perambulation is usually encouraged for convalescence. There is thus an ongoing need for both gurneys and standard wheelchairs. To date, this need has been satisfied by providing separate gurneys and wheelchairs, which constitutes considerable expense.
There are a number of inventions which purport to combine a wheelchair and gurney function in some manner. Typical of these are the patents of Abraham: U.S. Pat. No. 5,058,221, Stensby: U.S. Pat. No. 5,050,899, Hebert et al: U.S. Pat. No. 5,179,745, Earls: U.S. Pat. No. 4,997,200, and Holdt: U.S. Pat. No. 4,632,450. Abraham provides a wheelchair with a movable seat. It includes a movable platform for transferring a patient between a wheelchair and a bed or toilet. There is no provision for conversion to a gurney configuration.
Stensby provides a medical crash-chair adapted to form a gurney for transporting a patient. The chair includes a reclining backrest portion which is mechanically linked to an extension. The seat is slidably mounted on a base frame which has a very wide wheel base so that, according to the inventor, the chair may be placed over the foot of a treadmill, permitting an exhausted patient to collapse in the chair. The chair back can then be lowered and the leg portion raised by attendants, converting the chair into a gurney. The chair does not include any provision for raising the seat (and gurney platform) to hospital bed height. In addition, the chair is apparently not intended for use by the patient as a regular wheelchair since it does not include large side wheels for patient assisted locomotion.
Hebert et al provide an elevating convertible wheelchair which converts to a flat bed. The backrest hingedly pivots in relation to the seat portion to form a flat bed which is extended in length by adding an extension. There is no leg support portion, so that the patient would have to be lifted and slid backwards along the top of the flat bed in order to be supported in the prone position. An elevating means to elevate the seat is included, This elevating means is described as being a jacking mechanism such as hydraulic, pneumatic or electric elevating mechanism.
Earls describes a convertible wheelchair/gurney which includes a mechanism for :raising the patient seat level to a bed top level for transfer. The Earls invention includes movable extension to the lower wheelchair frame and an extra set of wheels to assist in properly supporting a patient in a gurney configuration.
Holdt describes a convertible wheelchair/gurney which has improvements in the areas of a cushioning cylinder that softens the lowering motion from the chair configuration to a litter configuration.
Neither Hebert, nor Holdt can be said to approximate a wheelchair configuration for a patient capable of moving himself/herself around and up and down hallways.
There is thus a need for a simple construction convertible wheelchair/gurney which raises the seat portion, back portion and leg portion to form a flat bed gurney without need for extensions or additional assemblies, or can be used as a standard wheelchair configuration for patient self-assisted perambulation.